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@medullah saidSo many questions -- couldn't you have just started ten or so threads? 😉
My first thread - I wanted to get away from Christian based/biased topics and hopefully give everyone a chance to have a say. I hope that this isn't too broad or open?
So -
* Can we define either of these two states, what is the difference?
* Is being spiritual the automatic domain of those that are religious?
* Is one of these characteristics more desirable or ...[text shortened]... ier for others to follow thought processes - we should not need 100 line responses to any of this 🙂
As for the subject line:
I think of "religious" as being more particular, more crystallized, more arbitrary, more traditional, more word-bound, involving more verbal mentation and external systems of sometimes well-intentioned manipulation, whereas "spiritual" is more focused (or maybe more unfocused) on what is beyond matter and verbiage.
@medullah saidReligion requires subscribing to a pre-determined set of beliefs and/or rules, being "spiritual" doesn't.
My first thread - I wanted to get away from Christian based/biased topics and hopefully give everyone a chance to have a say. I hope that this isn't too broad or open?
So -
* Can we define either of these two states, what is the difference?
* Is being spiritual the automatic domain of those that are religious?
* Is one of these characteristics more desirable or ...[text shortened]... ier for others to follow thought processes - we should not need 100 line responses to any of this 🙂
@vivify saidReligions are ideologies.
Religion requires subscribing to a pre-determined set of beliefs and/or rules, being "spiritual" doesn't.
Ideologies seek to extinguish doubt and deter further exploration.
Ideologies create frameworks based on assertions about the absolute truth ~ "pre-determined sets of beliefs and/or rules" as you put it ~ and invite people to subscribe to and internalize them.
Ideologies are intended to eliminate heterogeneity of thought, marginalize dissent, and make curiosity obsolete.
In this way, ideologies bind groups of adherents together in terms of their conformity, their compliance, and their means of identifying outsiders and opponents.
There may be "spirituality" involved in all these philosophical pursuits, but "spirituality" can and does obviously also stand apart from the groupist business of propagating ideologies.